The Gate
by Hardcore Heathen
Summary: An expedition to Sand is cut short when the Konoha nin stumble upon the Gate...to the edges of space and time. In which Naruto is a hero to many, and Neji discovers what it truly means to shape fate. Post-Training Trip.
1. The Gate

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Author's Notes: Thanks to Kraken's Ghost for creating the challenge that resulted in this. For readers, I would just like to mention that part of the challenge was to use crossovers. I've taken a lot of care into making sure that everything not from Naruto is adequately explained so that you don't have to have read, watched, or played anything to "get" The Gate. Though it might help.

Crossovers: Neji with Black and White (game), Naruto with…The One (movie), for lack of a better explanation.

**The Gate: Chapter One**

Escorting thirty-six self-righteous, arrogant, preteen genin through a desert to their first Chunin Exam was punishment duty. There was no other way to describe it – constant whining, sand everywhere, and not a drop of spare water for even the most basic vanities.

Of course, half the genin had never been out of Fire Country, where water was plentiful. They'd burned through their water supplies quickly, expecting that "someone would have extra." Now everyone suffered the results of their incompetence in the form of strict rationing. Hopefully the lesson would not be lost on them, though expecting genin to learn from their mistakes was a lot like expecting leniency from the Main House. Sometimes it happened, and you were dazed and confused for awhile, but most of the time you were just in pain for awhile.

Then there was the thirty-seventh genin.

Uzumaki Naruto. Neji had been looking forward to their reunion for three long years. They had a lot of unfinished business – Neji owed Naruto, though whether it was a fight or thanks, he wasn't quite sure.

Given that Naruto was being Naruto, and had apparently matured little in three years, Neji was leaning towards a fight.

An ordinary person would have banged their head against the wall. An ordinary jounin would have banged _Naruto's _head against the wall. But Neji came from a long line of distinguished, dignified Hyuuga famed for their stoicism. Not even Naruto could break his calm façade. Neji would keep his eyes forward, constantly vigilant. Nevermind that Naruto was invading his personal space, the slight darkening of the horizon over the next sand dune was far more fascinating.

"C'mon Neji! You know we can go faster than this!" Naruto whined, hands clasped together in a begging pose, empty canteen clunking against his side. Naruto had been one of the first to run out of water.

Could one strangle someone to death in a stoic fit of rage? Probably not, Neji decided with regret. Waving a dismissive hand at Naruto's uncomfortably close face, Neji sighed. "Most of our genin are _actually_ genin. They're not all jounin who have been too preoccupied to bother with promotions."

Naruto put on (what he thought was) a sly look. "How about a bet? A hundred ryo says I could beat you in a race to Suna."

He could always blame the murder on madness from the desert heat, Neji mused. It had been known to happen.

"Two hundred ryo?" Naruto asked, trying (futilely) to tempt Neji into doing something stupid.

Neji's only outward sign of frustration was a slight flaring of his nostrils. A quick glance behind him revealed that the genin teams were still broken up into their own little groups about a hundred feet back. The jounin-sensei who had been able to attend were whispering advice to their teams, while the un-chaperoned teams were oh-so-innocently trying to eavesdrop. Even Konohamaru's team was listening to Ebisu instead of stalking Naruto. Perhaps they'd finally begun to realize that this was a serious, potentially deadly mission.

If Neji hadn't seen first-hand that Naruto could be focused, determined, and completely unable to admit defeat in battle, he would have dismissed the blond as just another idiot genin. Of course, the other idiot genin were with their teams, hoping to succeed in the Chuunin Exam being hosted by Sunagakure no Sato.

Naruto opened his mouth to up the bet further, but Neji cut him off with a curt hand gesture.

"Why are you even here, Naruto? You can't be here to take the exam; you don't have a team. What are you getting out of this?" In the Hyuuga household, Neji's phrasing and slightly patronizing tone of voice would have been a mortal insult.

Such subtleties as diction and intonation were lost on Naruto. He scrunched up his eyes and pouted, asking "What do you mean I don't have a team?"

Neji arched a perfectly groomed eyebrow. "Sakura is a Chuunin. Sasuke is…absent." He would have called the Uchiha a traitor, but Naruto was stubbornly loyal enough to pick a fight over that.

Naruto brought his hands together in a familiar cross-shaped seal. A poof of smoke later, a scantily clad, tall, buxom redhead and a childish, innocent looking little boy appeared on either side of Naruto.

Naruto winked and grinned wolfishly. "See? My team's right here."

Neji blinked. For a doujutsu user schooled in the art of facial examination, it was equivalent to a kenjutsu master dropping their sword in shock.

The redhead pressed herself against Naruto, artfully displayed curves threatening to squeeze out of their thin silk coverings at the additional pressure. Her cheek rubbed against Naruto's whisker marks, but her eyes never left Neji's as she introduced herself. "My name is Beni. Pleased to make your acquaintance, _Hyuuga-donou_." She fairly purred Neji's family name.

Neji closed his eyes, swallowed once, and declared, "Naruto, go make a circuit of the group and make sure that nobody's decided to wander off. I'm going to scout ahead." He then activated his Byakugan and quickly strode past the disturbing trio, hoping the doujutsu would disguise the vein pulsing in his forehead.

"Would you like to _scout_ me, Hyuuga-donou?" Beni called out in a sultry voice. No, Neji corrected himself, that was _Naruto _calling out in a _mentally scarring_ tone of voice.

Neji refused to dignify the shadow clone with a response, instead taking two chakra enhanced leaps to clear the next sand dune. He could have mentally projected his vision beyond the dune of course, but that wouldn't have put another three hundred feet between him and Naruto's "team."

His first reaction upon reaching the top of the dune was relief. That clone had looked and acted like a...like a _courtesan._ If he hadn't been constantly revolted by the knowledge that "Beni" was a Henge'd Naruto...he closed his eyes and shuddered at the thought.

The whole thing was a completely Naruto stunt. An incredibly idiotic idea so horrendously flawed that everybody would _know_ that there was _no one_ stupid enough to do _that._ So, of course, it would work perfectly. It was true what they said about Naruto – crazy like a fox. Neji didn't bother to hide his smirk; there was nobody nearby to see it.

The amusingly infuriating jinchuriiki would keep things interesting, if nothing else. Putting Naruto's antics out of his mind for the moment, Neji returned his attention to the outside world.

His eyes widened in shock and his jaw went slack.

The slightly dark tinge to the horizon he'd noticed earlier was now visible as a beige wall as high as the clouds. There was a sandstorm coming. No, a sand _hurricane_ coming. The entirety of the horizon, from earth to sky, was blotted out by the monstrous wall of sand. At a quick estimate, he'd say it was seventy miles away. And it was still that huge…there was no way! But the Byakugan didn't lie. It was no illusion.

That was impossible. _No_ storm was that big!

But he'd been trained in reacting to and surviving the impossible, and instinct shoved disbelief aside.

Turning around, he raised his right hand in the air and brought his left to his mouth, whistling sharply. The assembled Konoha nin came to a halt, looking up at him with disgruntled focus. Water rations, though necessary, were not popular.

Neji cleared his throat. "There's a sandstorm approaching," he began, managing to keep his voice completely calm and clinical, as if the storm would be nothing more than a minor inconvenience. "To make sure nobody gets separated, I want you to all tie yourselves together at the waist. Start with your own team, and then set up another rope to another team until everyone is connected. Then dig yourselves a burrow in the sand at least six inches deep." Before anyone could question him he barked, "Now!"

There was a moment of confusion where the genin looked at each other or their sensei for confirmation. Neji nearly cursed at them; _he_ was in command, not the sensei. And they had precious little time to waste before that demon of a storm caught up to them. The thing was moving impossibly quickly; if they had half an hour Neji would be shocked.

Surveying the preparations with a critical eye, Neji barely managed to contain his frustration. At least half the genin hadn't bothered to pack rope of any sort. (If he remembered correctly, they were the same lot who were out of water.) Idiots like that would never make chuunin…but at least their teammates and sensei were lenient enough to share.

Things could have been worse, he thought. Thankfully Konoha nin were disciplined, or at least, had been taught enough to know the dangers of a sandstorm. Some of Suna's sandstorms were powerful enough to strip the flesh right off of your bones; everyone knew that.

Surveying the busy, efficient work of the genin (even the forgetful ones) filled Neji with a sense of calm. There were good ninja amongst them. Those few would lead the others; _they_ were the ones the Chunin Exam was truly designed for.

Groups of three and four quickly roped themselves together, then buckled themselves in with other groups, and a rapidly forming a spider web of human bodies began to appear.

Still, he had a lingering feeling that something was wrong.

"You know, I think you're just trying to sucker me into losing my bet," came a voice that was all too close to Neji's ear. The Hyuuga spun, jaw clenched in frustration.

"Damnit Naruto, this is no time for games! There's a _serious_ storm coming. We need to get under cover."

"Oh come on, it's just sand. What the hell's a little sand gonna do, ruin your hair?" Naruto stuck his tongue out at Neji and jabbed a finger at the Hyuuga's long black hair.

Neji ignored the jab and put as much authority into his voice as possible. "Naruto, this is not a game. This is a mission, and I _order_ you to follow me and get to shelter."

Naruto grinned goofily. "I'm not stupid enough to fall for that. If it's so dangerous, why aren't _you_ under cover already? I hear 'officers' aren't supposed to needlessly risk themselves." There was a slight mocking tone to his voice, as if Naruto thought himself more of a jounin than Neji.

If he'd had the time, Neji would have left Naruto awake but paralyzed and left him to bake in the sand for a few hours, but now he only had time for efficiency. A lightning jab to the blonde's temple and a short burst of chakra later…Naruto disappeared into a poof of smoke.

A series of thundering footsteps and shifting sand came from behind Neji. "Catch us if you can!" was all the warning he had before a tidal wave of orange jackets and amused Naruto's bounded over and around the shocked Hyuuga.

Far louder than Naruto's antics was the screaming wail of the sandstorm. It had to be almost on top of them by now. Why couldn't Naruto hear it coming? Damn the idiot for saving Neji from a self-made hell, damn Naruto for making Neji _owe_ him.

Konoha nin didn't leave anyone behind. Neji chased after the hundreds of Naruto clones, expertly manipulating the chakra in his feet to give himself a firm grip on the sand.

For every step, he lashed out with two perfectly aimed jyuuken strikes at two different Naruto's. All disappeared in puffs of smoke, their surviving comrades jeering at the laggards' demise.

But it wasn't enough. Neji knew it wouldn't be, and he knew that he would still try anyway. If he'd learned anything from his fight with Naruto all those years ago, it was to never admit defeat.

When he crested the hill, defeat roared its hellish triumph at him, almost bringing him to his knees. Wave after wave of Naruto's disappeared into the wall of sand. The storm was moving too quickly for Neji to even see the puffs of smoke as they were destroyed. Then the storm was no more than a dozen yards from Neji, and he had no time for anything but instinct.

He bent his knees and let a feeling of liquid fluidity replace the rigid bones in his arms. His eyes closed, and with a shove from his foot, he spun. Chakra poured from every square inch of his body, mixing with the speed of his spin to form the Hyuuga absolute defense: Kaiten.

Most sandstorms ended in a few minutes. Neji had never kept a Kaiten up for more than thirty seconds, and that had almost killed him.

When the sandstorm struck the thin chakra shell of his Kaiten, he almost gave in. All it would take would be a simple relaxation of his muscles, to just stop fighting against that endless, omnipotent tidal wave of sand and it would be over. Almost.

Hyuuga Neji would be damned if he died to a few measly grains of sand.

Two bolts of lightning agony erupted behind his still-active Byakugan eyes, and he felt something inside him snap, felt the building pressure crack like a damn. A surge of power flowed through his veins, and he spun harder. He could do this forever.

Then he saw it. Somehow, he could see a pattern of intense planes and impossible curves in the sandstorm. Unconsciously, he shifted his angle of rotation and slowed almost imperceptibly. For an instant, he could feel the resonance. His kaiten, his chakra, his very being was fused in perfect synchronization with a power vast beyond his comprehension.

He felt small, insignificant before that power, but he still fought it. And in the back of his mind, he felt a cold presence momentarily studying the anomaly that stood firm.

Then the presence evaporated. He could feel the storm shifting, moving with the desires of his half-formed thoughts – _'part…pass over us…'_

And the storm shifted, the wall of wind-driven sand parting to either side of Neji, curving out, then in, meeting and reforming the sandstorm a half mile away. Before him, the sand continued to rush on and part before the barrier of his will and Kaiten.

In that moment of ecstasy, the power overwhelmed him. His Kaiten shattered, exploding outward in a blinding display of power.

The only witness was Konohamaru, who had ignored Ebisu's warnings and kept his head above the sand to get one good look at the storm. The boy immediately bowed his head to the sand, mouth shut in total awe that words could not encompass. For a short sliver of time, Konohamaru had felt something…something truly, awesomely terrifying, something he could only call divine presence. What he had seen was a miracle, one he would never forget.

For Neji, the experience was merely a quick slip into oblivion. By the time he landed, head first, a hundred yards from the top of the dune, completely boneless, he was already dead to the world.

Above Neji, the sandstorm twisted, impossibly arcing into a perfect circle a half mile wide, centering upon the fallen Hyuuga. It could no longer be called a sandstorm – it was a sand hurricane, and Neji was its eye.

A voice echoed forth from every corner of the hurricane, cold, deep, and never meant for human ears.

Konohamaru, the only one with his head above the sand, merely felt the sound pass in one ear and out the other, as if it had uttered a concept too vast for his brain to even register the mere existence of. Neji screamed piercingly, back arching until the slightest further movement would snap his spine. Blood streamed from his ears and his nose, and as quickly as it had come, the voice vanished, leaving Neji to collapse, still unconscious, bleeding onto the dry desert sands.

The massive hurricane of sand still surrounded the Konoha nin, and Konohamaru felt his goggles fog up with terrified tears. He should get up. He should help Neji, Neji who had saved them all.

But the supernatural wall of sand glared down at him, forced him to cry and bury his head in the sand and beg for forgiveness for witnessing something normal humans were never meant to see: an act of God.

His body shook and he wriggled further down into the sand, still shaking. He was no hero. If he waited a minute, one of the adults would do something. Or Naruto. Where was Naruto? He lived for things like this.

Time passed. The sand around Konohamaru felt like the sands of an hourglass, falling down and crushing him. Still no one moved. No Naruto leapt to the rescue.

Konohamaru's right arm punched through the thin sand hole he'd dug and was quickly followed by his left. With no small effort, he managed to shove himself up, suction from the sand beneath him giving way abruptly. Everyone else remained underground, still fearful of the sandstorm that had whimsically decided encircle the Konoha nin.

Konohamaru ignored the unholy, omnipresent roar of the sand hurricane and ran for Neji, slipping on sand in his haste. He couldn't hear his own ragged breaths over the continual pound of sand on wind driven sand, like never-ending thunder.

He knew that if he looked up at the steady, immobile chaos of the eye wall, he wouldn't look away. The horrifying suggestions he caught out of the corners of his eyes were more than enough, like there was something lurking at the threshold between reality and the infinite beyond.

But Neji was more important now.

Konohamaru wasn't sure when it happened; one minute he was running painfully slowly, uncomfortably aware of his surroundings, and the next he was falling to his knees before Neji's prone form. The Hyuuga's limbs were splayed awkwardly, left arm bent at an impossible angle. His clothes were torn and bloodied, face bruised, and most of the skin below his neck was badly abraded.

Suddenly Konohamaru felt out of his depth. He wasn't a medic, had no idea what to do. There'd been a course on this, but he hadn't paid attention…pulse! Check pulse. He pressed two trembling fingers into Neji's neck where the carotid artery should be. Nothing.

He pressed harder. He still didn't feel anything. His vision blurred, and he pressed harder, willing Neji's pulse into being. Nothing. Konohamaru's throat closed and his vision blurred. His jaw shook uncontrollably, and he tried to breathe, unable to get air through his shock.

Neji had taken a direct hit from the hurricane and then fallen and he wasn't moving and what was he going to do and –

"What happened to you?"

Neji's voice knifed through his benumbed senses. Konohamaru shook his head and blinked uncomprehendingly. It was as if Neji had never been struck…he couldn't see any of the wounds, the scratches, the blood he'd seen before; not even a scrap of torn cloth remained.

"I told everyone to stay in the sand," Neji began, speaking slowly, as if with a very young, stupid child. "Why are you here?"

Konohamaru opened his mouth to speak, to explain…but…there was…no. Instead, he pointed at the giant funnel of sand swirling around them. As Neji glanced up at the phenomenon, it occurred to Konohamaru that, for the first time, he couldn't hear the howling of the sand. He couldn't have grown used to that cacophony of noise, could he?

"Unusual," Neji remarked calmly. "Go get everyone out of the sand. Send the jounin-sensei to me, and keep the other genin occupied."

Only one thing held Konohamaru back. "Where's Naruto?"

A far-off look entered Neji's eyes. "He went into the sandstorm…and I'm going to bring him out. Now, go."

Something about him struck a chord in Konohamaru, and he swallowed back a wave of emotion. Not trusting his voice, he nodded. The individual he'd spoken to was Neji, but more. There was a confidence, a serious determination to achieve the impossible, that he had only seen in Naruto.

Konohamaru had never been more serious than when he answered, "Anything you say."

-/-/=\-\-

Neji held his hands clasped behind his back as he faced the sand wall, seemingly oblivious to the half dozen jounin he'd summoned. "Report."

Ebisu adjusted his glasses and stepped forward to answer, silently placing himself as second in command. None of the other jounin-sensei visibly protested. "All present and accounted for. The only injury of note was Ame, who passed out. I believe he's claustrophobic."

Neji narrowed his eyes in thought. "He didn't get out of the sand, even though he was afraid?"

"No. He followed his orders."

"Commend him, if you haven't already. Courage in the face of fear should be rewarded." Neji abruptly pivoted around to face them. "Now…does anyone know what that –" he motioned towards the eye wall with a lazy gesture of his hand, "– is?"

Ebisu stepped back amongst the other jounin. Neji mentally noted the action. Hyuuga were trained to interpret the slightest of facial suggestions, and Ebisu was obviously self-effacing and eager to prove his worth, while equally eager to avoid blame. From his record he had a tendency to be a toady, but he was skilled and somewhat intelligent. Seven points out of ten.

Silence reigned.

"I'm open to any suggestion at this point. Pure theory, myth, mass illusion…" Neji trailed off as one of the jounin-sensei cleared his throat. "Yes, Mozuku?" He didn't know the glasses-wearing young man that well, besides hearing somewhere that Mozuku had been one of the examiners during Neji's first Chunin Exam. Apparently he'd made jounin shortly afterwards.

Mozuku licked his lips nervously before answering, "Well, I have heard one legend about something like this…" he shrugged. "But it was only some superstition a few of the stupider Suna genin talked about during one of the Exams."

Six out of ten thus far. Knowledge, but little courage to advance with it.

"We are in Wind Country at the moment." Neji didn't expand on the comment, instead waiting for Mozuku.

The jounin exhaled in defeat, knowing his answer would be ridiculed. "One of them was trying to scare their teammate into doing better. 'Don't screw up or the Maelstrom will get you!' was what I think she said. He mocked her for believing in it, and she answered that a lot of people had seen sandstorms of unnatural size in the desert, and that nobody had ever survived one. He told her, 'So where do we get the stories?' and she shut up. Sounded like a boogeyman story for little kids, but it's the closest thing I've heard of to something like this."

So he'd come to a juncture, Neji mused. He could be exasperated with Mozuku's tale, as the other jounin-sensei appeared to be, or he could thank the man for trying. One would get him more camaraderie from most of them, but even less initiative. The other would make him seem silly for listening to folk legends.

Neji frowned and chose the middle path. "It's not a lot to go on, but thanks anyway." From the corner of his eye, he caught Genma nodding slightly at his words.

Before he could continue, Ebisu craned his neck forward and asked, "Have you tried seeing through it with the Byakugan?"

"My doujutsu appears to be unable to perceive the sandstorm. My vision merely…stops, at the edge. Now, does anyone else have anything to add?" Some were visibly nervous at his casual mention of the Byakugan's failure, and Neji took note of it. He always did, constantly reevaluating those around him. "Alright. Go talk to the genin, tell them this can't last much longer, and try and prevent hysteria. I don't need panicked children running into that storm in desperation."

"What if they ask about Naruto?" Neji wasn't sure who'd asked, and it didn't particularly matter. He felt an inward tug directing his voice, subtle enough that he barely noticed it, and when he did, he immediately forgot it.

"Tell them that he's missing in the storm. We'll look for him once it blows over. Dismissed."

-/-/=\-\-

Neji peered up at the darkly overcast night sky and leaned back into the sand of the dune. The top of the dune's crest a hundred feet behind him was just barely inside the sandstorm, and its slope gave him a good view of the rest of the Konoha nin. Many were sleeping, some were talking, and others were keeping a watch. He doubted the necessity of a watch, but telling trained soldiers that keeping watch was pointless would only increase their insecurities.

Sand trickled through the wide neck of his shirt, but he ignored it. For some reason, he didn't feel tired. The group trusted him, had faith in his abilities, and would follow him. All he had to do was maintain constant command and superiority over jounin more experienced, more knowledgeable, and more used to getting their way.

The easiest way to keep their loyalty would be to do something worthy of it, like find a way out.

Rising to his feet in one fluid motion, Neji activated his Byakugan. He slowly strode up the dune towards the edge of the sandstorm, focusing intently on the void in his vision. It was different than when he tried to look beyond his field of vision…this was more like he was trying to see the void between the stars.

Unconsciously, he reached out towards the barrier. His fingers were mere inches from the swirling abyss of sand that his Byakugan told him was _not_ sand, was something more.

He snatched his hand back and physically turned away from the sand. He needed to test the barrier, yes, but the first thing to go through would be something less important than his hand, like a stick, or one of the genin.

Neji smirked at his own humor and cast a careful eye over the camp again. Nothing had changed, and he still didn't feel tired.

Exhaling slowly, Neji slowly sat down in the Lotus position and let his arms hang limply over his knees. Using the Byakugan, he zoomed in on a single grain of sand. It was a tiny object, yet it filled his vision. Neji knew that the strain of looking at something so small would quickly build until it became an unbearable distraction and broke his focus, but he took his time.

The grain was a single, somewhat smoothly rounded bit of quartz, no more than a millimeter in diameter. The yellowish tinge appeared to be from tiny bits of iron inside the quartz. The bits of iron seemed more interesting than the quartz, and without thinking Neji's vision snapped even closer in, bringing one of the iron impurities into the forefront of his sight.

Fascinated, Neji lost himself in the study of the minute object. With every second, he came closer to the goal of the meditation: complete comprehension.

It was always the goal because it was impossible. Striving for it led one to improvement of the Byakugan, but one was always aware that there was an unbreakable barrier between effort and achievement. Right now, Neji couldn't comprehend the idea of a limit, that his search might reach a wall.

His vision reached the void between electron and nucleus. It was a massive gulf, but he crossed through it with a thought.

Interesting. The particles in the nucleus weren't spherical after all. They were angular and impossible to describe using the traditional three dimensions. Somehow their shape drew the eye inward. Neji obligingly gazed inside.

Studying the new, infinitely smaller object with focused interest, Neji carefully committed every detail to memory. He didn't have the words to describe what he saw, only that it was fundamentally simple and profoundly intricate.

On a whim, he went back through the sand grain in reverse, idly tracing the electrical charges of the electrons with his eyes as he passed. The other atoms held no interest for him; they were more of the same. The molecular structure now seemed overly simplistic, and he barely spared it a glance as his sight expanded to the entirety of the iron speck in the sand grain, then the grain itself.

He still perfectly remembered every part of the grain's inner structure. At a base level, he comprehended it. And based on that comprehension…

A minute shift of his Byakugan brought another sand grain into view. He repeated the in depth study of its being.

Then he did it again, on another grain. And another, and another, and another, each coming more and more quickly. For the first time in years, he felt excited. This was something that no Hyuuga had ever done before, that no one could have ever done before.

Konohamaru's voice reached him, seemingly from a great distance. "…-eji? Neji? Are you awake?"

Neji deactivated his Byakugan and blinked twice, trying to bring the short genin's form into focus. He frowned at the boy and stood from the Lotus position in a single, practiced motion. The position of the moon hadn't changed very much, so he couldn't have been meditating for very long. And Konohamaru was already interrupting! Well, that was what came of having Naruto as a role model.

"Yes?" Neji asked testily.

Konohamaru shifted nervously. "Um…Ebisu-sensei sent me to check on you."

Neji's voice could have frozen steel. "I am not a child. Your sensei does not need to assign _genin_ to babysit _his commander._" The boy was silent, but awkwardly so. He showed no signs of fear at Neji's tone. Perplexed, Neji narrowed his eyes. "What?"

Konohamaru shrugged. "Well…you've kind of been sitting there for two days. He's been sending someone up every hour, but you never reacted…" his voice trailed off, and he shrugged at Neji again.

With great effort, Neji contained his reaction to a slight inhalation. For a moment he paused, gathering his thoughts. At the back of his mind, he could feel the square foot of sand that he now understood perfectly. He knew where they were, could detect even the most minute brush of wind against their surface…

He nodded, half to himself, half to Konohamaru.

"Send the jounin-sensei to me. Tell them I have an idea."

Neji watched Konohamaru depart before turning back to the patch of sand. It didn't look any different from the sand around it, or even the other grains in the patch. Neji knew differently; each of the grains was different on many levels…size, exact composition, etc. He crouched and ran a finger through the sand, watching the individual grains shift and tumble.

He knew he didn't have to use his eyes to watch the sand shift. He knew when the sand shifted, would always know.

That was the only real difference between this bit of sand and the rest of the desert. There was nothing special about it besides the fact that, impossibly, he _knew_ it. Knowing it created a sense of ownership, which was only logical. If he was the only one to truly know something, he should be the only one to lay claim to it.

The new level of understanding didn't concern him; it merely was. The ability existed, was part of him, and he knew at a base level that without it he would feel an indelible sense of loss. So he accepted it as a gift from divine fate. There was no real alternative.

He picked up a single grain of sand and carefully walked towards the edge of the sand hurricane. With a casual flick of his hand, he sent the grain into the maelstrom. A tiny section of his consciousness followed, and his eyes widened.

The Maelstrom wasn't a storm. It was the gateway to the universe, and other universes.

The grain of sand wasn't being tossed around in the storm he _thought_ he saw.

It was in another dimension altogether.


	2. Endless Dune

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, but everyone else in his series does. (Carefully think about that statement for a moment, and then remember that there is no such thing as a good pun.)

Author's Notes: This is a brief interlude to Naruto's perspective. In the interests of a decent sequence of events, I'm starting at roughly the same point the first chapter did. So yeah, some repetition, but a different take on things.

**The Gate: Chapter Two**

Naruto had barely been able to contain himself the whole trip. Maybe it was finally doing stuff for Konoha again or maybe it was just the chance to retake the Chuunin Exam, but he'd been bouncing off the (nonexistent) walls with nervous energy. Something about the trip was just giving him a building feeling of excitement, like watching an exploding tag slowly sizzle before igniting in a flash of pyrotechnic destruction.

He'd had to find some productive outlet for his energy, or he never would have been able to get to sleep each night. Thankfully, Neji was leading the expedition, and made a convenient target for times when Naruto got tired of telling the other genin how he was going to kick their asses during the Exam.

Normally he would never grow tired of telling other genin about how awesome he was, except he'd run out of genin teams to taunt. He needed new teams to mess with, which meant getting to Suna.

So he took a carefully calculated step inside Neji's personal space. Any closer and Neji would step back, any further away and he wouldn't be as invasive of Neji's personal space, which was the whole point.

Adopting a begging pose and putting a slight tremble in his lower lip, Naruto whined, "C'mon Neji! You know we can go faster than this!" His empty canteen clunked against his side, clunking hollowly. Neji's eyes darted to the canteen and briefly narrowed.

Maybe he really was serious about those water rations? Nah. He was just being uptight like always.

Neji waved Naruto back a few inches and sighed. "Most of our genin are _actually_ genin. They're not all jounin who have been too preoccupied to bother with promotions."

This was getting nowhere. How was he going to get Neji to start talking to him if the Hyuuga was going to be antisocial? A sly grin stole across his face.

"How about a bet? A hundred ryo says I could beat you in a race to Suna." Bets always worked on Baa-chan. But Neji was still silent. Maybe Naruto hadn't wagered enough? "Two hundred ryo?"

Neji's nostrils flared and he looked away, carefully studying the genin teams he was (nominally) in charge of. Based on the Iruka Scale of Frustrated, Naruto calculated that he was about two steps from snapping. (The ISoF was generally reliable with shinobi – they all tried to restrain themselves, and since they'd all had the same general education, they had a lot of the same tics.)

So one more step couldn't hurt! And Neji must not be interested in money; being a jounin probably paid well. Naruto opened his mouth to wager some of Kakashi's collection of porn – all guys liked porn, right? – but Neji cut him off with a hand gesture and a glare.

"Why are you even here, Naruto?" Neji asked. Before Naruto could answer, Neji pressed on. "You can't be here to take the exam; you don't have a team. What are you getting out of this?"

The ISoF was definitely not working. Some people went off easier than Iruka, but Neji had skipped deep breaths, threats, yelling, and had gone straight to "Adult to Child Lecture" complete with slow hand gestures and patronizing tone! If Naruto cared whether people thought he was being childish or not, he might have been offended.

Besides, retaliating was way more fun. "What do you mean I don't have a team?" Naruto responded with a Cheshire grin.

Neji's eye twitched. "Sakura is a Chuunin. Sasuke is…absent."

Neji really must not have much experience with this. Keeping the lecturing tone after the person being lectured revealed they knew something you didn't was always a bad idea.

Naruto formed the seal for Kage Bunshin, and with a puff of smoke, his team appeared. Beni immediately draped herself over Naruto, red hair dangling down to his waste, soft flesh pressing in all the right places. Seiji laced his fingers together behind his head and idly watched Neji's blood pressure spike.

Beni spoke first, fairly purring her greeting to Neji. "Pleased to make your acquaintance, _Hyuuga-donou_."

Neji blinked once, twice in shock. Then he swallowed, closed his eyes, and took a deep, calming breath. "Naruto, go make a circuit of the group and make sure that nobody's decided to wander off. I'm going to scout ahead." Before he'd even finished speaking, Neji activated his Byakugan (about twenty seconds too late to hide the pulsing vein in his forehead) and walked past Naruto.

Naruto frowned at the Hyuuga's back. This wasn't going to get him anywhere! Obviously he hadn't pushed hard enough. Thankfully, his shadow clones thought just like him.

"Would you like to _scout_ me, Hyuuga-donou?" Beni called out, hand halfheartedly held up in a feigned attempt at "protecting her innocence."

Neji ignored the "girl" and kept walking up the dune.

Damn.

Maybe he was gay?

Naruto turned to Seiji, but the clone had already had that thought and made itself scarce. Naruto didn't blame the little bastard; making fake sexual advances while transformed into a chick was one thing, but doing it as a guy was completely different.

Well, damn. Now the only thing he could do would be to be a dutiful little genin and obey the jounin…or he could start that race anyway. He was getting that urge again, that building feeling that he needed to do _something._

Neji's voice rang clearly from atop the sand dune. "There's a sandstorm approaching."

The urge peaked. This could be _fun._ A deep feeling inside him resonated with the thought, and, as always, Naruto ran with the impulse.

It didn't take much effort to shrug off Beni and dash around the dune, easily avoiding Neji's eyes. A grin grew across his face, and he felt a savage exultation in finally doing something besides nothing.

Then he saw the sandstorm. It was godlike in size, covering the entire horizon with wind-tossed sand, obscuring the sun and creating a rapidly approaching black cloud that threatened him with destruction.

The pupils of his blue eyes dilated, his breath grew ragged, and he eagerly squeezed his hands into fists, fingers brushing against sweaty palms. He'd never had time to appreciate this sensation before, because impending death had always prompted immediate reaction. Now he could watch it come. He knew instinctually that this would be the perfect test. If he could make it through _that_, he could make it through anything. Naruto had never been one to back down from a challenge, and the storm was practically calling out to him.

Something was missing though. He needed someone to share this moment of anticipation with.

"Now!" barked Neji. He must have been talking for awhile, but Naruto had missed that little speech. Not that it mattered; Naruto had an idea.

The distance between himself and the Hyuuga was covered in two chakra enhanced leaps. Neji, absorbed in his nervous study of the genin teams, managed to completely miss Naruto's approach.

Naruto enjoyed his brief ability to sneak up on the man with eyes in the back of his head, and crept up until he was a mere foot behind Neji.

He briefly considered his options. He needed a hook…something to get Neji to follow him. Well, Naruto had never been a master of persuasion, but he'd always been a master of pissing people off enough to chase after him.

So he practically screamed "You know, I think you're just trying to sucker me into losing my bet!" right into Neji's ear.

Neji whirled, eyes wide in surprise, jaw clenched in suppressed rage. "Damnit Naruto, this is no time for games! There's a _serious_ storm coming. We need to get under cover."

Naruto almost laughed at Neji's seriousness. Did he really think Naruto was that stupid? Well, only one way to find out.

"Oh come on, it's just sand. What the hell's a little sand gonna do, ruin your hair?" Naruto stuck his tongue out at Neji and jabbed a finger at the Hyuuga's long black hair.

Neji spoke slowly, deadly serious. "Naruto, this is not a game. This is a mission, and I _order_ you to follow me and get to shelter."

Naruto grinned to himself. Neji really did think he was that stupid. Jeez, he'd fought Gaara before. He knew sand could kill. Still, Neji's paranoia was too easy to milk.

"I'm not stupid enough to fall for that. If it's so dangerous, why aren't _you_ under cover already? I hear 'officers' aren't supposed to needlessly risk themselves," Naruto answered.

Neji's only warning was a slight tensing of his shoulder muscles. Then he lashed out with a hand, fingers extended in a perfectly aimed Jyuuken strike. Naruto never had a chance; the blow struck him right in the temple.

And he disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Neji stared at the smoke, briefly unable to make the connection.

The real Naruto laughed loud enough to get Neji's attention. The moment the Hyuuga looked up, Naruto held up his hands, crossed in the seal for Kage Bunshin, and poured a massive amount of chakra into the technique. Hundreds of clones appeared, all screaming, "Catch us if you can!"

The clones scattered in every direction.

Neji ran up the hill after the biggest group of clones, lips white with barely contained profanities. The Naruto's laughed; Neji'd taken the hook.

This was the best moment in a fight. They were the thousand identical faces in every direction, and for the first little while, none of them was quite sure if they were a clone or the real thing.

They lived for these moments – risking it all on a flip of the coin. Would Neji find the original? Either way, the Hyuuga would follow them to the storm. They'd have an audience for…something interesting. They weren't quite sure what it would be, but they knew it would be interesting.

The wave of Naruto's crested the dune, and the sandstorm was right there to meet them. They yelled a challenge and disappeared into the onrushing wall of sand.

The last Naruto to be engulfed hesitated. Something seemed off; he'd never been _quite_ this much of a thrillseeker.

Then the storm hit, and the world exploded into an impossible stream of lights and color.

-/-/=\-\-

Naruto opened his eyes and shook his head. Fuck that had hurt; why the _hell_ had he run _into_ a sandstorm? That was the stupidest thing he'd done since…Naruto paused.

Wow. He'd found a new benchmark for "Bad Ideas." Well, on the bright side, everything other idea in his entire life looked slightly more intelligent when compared with "getting into a fight with a sandstorm."

On the down side, Neji was never going to let him live this down. Or maybe he would; Neji seemed like the type to think he was above friendly ribbing. Which was stupid; how were you supposed to keep your friends from repeating their mistakes if you didn't constantly mention them?

Still, the rest of the group would have no problems with calling him an idiot. Resigned to his terrible fate, Naruto rubbed his eyes, cracked his neck, and slowly sat up.

"Can we do that again?" he called out, a small smile building. Screw it; that'd been fun. He didn't remember a lot of it, but waking up with this many bruises would point towards his fight with nature being more than a minor scuffle.

No one answered.

Naruto rose to his feet and shook himself like a dog. Sand fell off in a wave, but he could still feel it scraping against his skin; it was stuck inside his clothes. Well, that could be dealt with later.

Naruto turned around to glare down the sand dune at the unresponsive Konoha nin, fully prepared to utilize his endless arsenal of attention-seizing annoyances.

There was only one minor problem with Naruto's plan of annoying the rest of the group for his own amusement. Rather insignificant, really, except it was kind of hard to annoy people who weren't there. And appeared to have been replaced with a rather massive rocky outcropping that Naruto was fairly certain he'd never seen.

Naruto cleared his throat. "Um…guys?" No response. He cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, "Guys?"

If the rest of the group was yelling back, Naruto didn't hear it. Naruto sighed and scratched his head, staring at the rocky outcropping.

Well. This was new.

He walked over to the outcropping and lightly poked it with his foot. Yep, definitely a rock. Naruto put more weight on the rocky stretch of ground until he was standing on it. Sadly, it didn't disappear. Shame, that. A genjutsu prank like this would have been pretty funny.

He really was stranded in a desert somewhere, alone, with no water. It never occurred to Naruto that panic might be an acceptable reaction. The only acceptable reaction was to keep going and to continue mourning the absence of Ichiraku Ramen.

Now, before the storm they'd been headed towards Suna, which was southwest of Konoha, and the sun looked to be rising behind him…so all he had to do was turn a bit to the left and he'd be going in pretty much the right direction.

Turning back was also one of those "normal" ideas that never occurred to him. So Naruto turned a little bit to the left and broke into a light jog, heedless of the oppressive heat.

Thank God Kakashi-sensei had managed to convince him that jackets were of little use in the desert. Even if the crazy perv had tried to get him to wear something besides orange, he'd at least managed to convince Naruto to wear lighter variations on his standard outfit.

Despite the uneven, rocky ground, the going was fairly easy for the first hour or so. Then he made it to a small cliff wall, and groaned.

The thing was only two dozen or so feet high, an easy leap. But Jiraiya had taught him to look before he leaped. (Literally. Jiraiya had told him to jump up over a security fence "as part of a mission." Ten seconds later he was being pummeled by shrieking, angry, half naked women who had been enjoying a hot spring.)

Climbing was going to suck, but jumping over and discovering it led to a bottomless cliff would suck more. Naruto wiped sweat off of his forehead with the back of his hand and resigned himself to the task.

A rock behind him softly clacked against another. Naruto whirled, kunai in hand.

A person dressed in a strange outfit was a mere two yards from Naruto, posture relaxed. Naruto spent a brief moment glancing over the person's outlandish clothing – body enclosing suit, plugs in the nose, thick goggles, straps and pouches everywhere – before brandishing the kunai at them.

"Who are you?" Naruto asked. Maybe it (he? she?) was a Suna-nin, but Naruto wasn't going to count on that.

The figure remained silent for a moment before responding slowly. The words flowed smoothly, despite the slight distortion the tubes up his nose caused. By the rich depth of his voice, the person was obviously a man.

Unfortunately, despite the slightly musical quality of his speech, the man was speaking gibberish. Naruto narrowed his eyes in confusion. This was Wind Country, not some off continent fiefdom. People spoke intelligibly, damnit!

The man spouted another stream of gibberish, his tone angry and demanding. His finger jabbed towards Naruto's canteen.

Naruto flashed a conciliatory smile and patted his canteen with his free hand, letting it echo hollowly. "No water here, bud." Even if the other man couldn't understand him, the tone should get Naruto's peaceful intentions across.

The man drew a white knife from within the folds of his outfit and assumed a ready position. Naruto waited, still confused. What was this absurd little man up to? He probably wasn't a ninja; he didn't have a hitai-ate. Naruto obviously did.

Then the man charged, feet gliding over the rock in an impressive burst of speed. He lashed out with the knife, the tip blurring into near-invisibility.

Still, civilian was civilian. Naruto caught the leading edge of the knife on his kunai, twisted the thrust up, leaving the man wide open. Not wanting to hurt the man too badly, Naruto lightly punched him in the ribs. Lightly was a relative term; the punch had enough force behind it to daze a small ox.

But the man managed to roll with the blow and brought his now-free knife down in a backwards slash. Naruto spun out of the way and hop-skipped back three steps, trying to get some distance.

The man gave him none, following him step for step, wickedly sharp knife coming dangerously close to Naruto's skin twice.

Enough was enough though, and Naruto sidestepped the next thrust. A quick step forward and a drop to his knees avoided the backswing at his head, leaving Naruto in the perfect position to drive his fist into the man's stomach.

The man staggered back a few feet and shook his head. This time though, it was Naruto pressing the offensive, and he was faster. Much, much faster.

He let the next knife slash score a glancing cut on his arm; it let him get close enough t pinion the man's arms in front of him. Naruto flexed the arms outward, straining for just a moment before the man fell to his knees in an attempt to instinctively alleviate the pain. Naruto let go of the arms and, with a spinning kick to the temple, sent the man into unconsciousness.

Naruto took a deep breath, held it, and slowly exhaled. That had been _strange_. The man was too skilled for a normal civilian, even one who'd had some training. He wasn't strong enough to be a ninja of any note…maybe he was a genin gone rogue? He couldn't be samurai; he had no sword, horse, or armor.

A series of loud clicks echoed in the silence of the desert. Naruto slowly looked up, and swallowed nervously at the sight he was confronted with.

There were at least thirty more men, all dressed in identical fashion. More importantly, they all had crossbows aimed at his chest.

Well. That answered his question. The man was a rather skilled bandit. With friends who appeared to be equally skilled.

For the first time since he'd woken up, Naruto grinned. This wasn't going to help him make Chunin, or rescue Sasuke, or change anything important, but beating the crap out of these jerks would at least make him feel like he'd done something productive for the day.

"Several dozen of you…one of me. Hardly fair," he whined.

The crossbows didn't waver.

His grinned turned vicious and his tone became biting. "Maybe I should tie one hand behind my back?"

There was a unanimous click-_fwoosh_ noise of crossbow bolts being fired, and Naruto stopped holding back. They'd started it, after all.


	3. Endless Dune II

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto

Author's Notes: Props to whoever guesses what Naruto's dream was about. Also, I'm going to save time and confusion. The Konoha nin are on the planet Arrakis, also known as Dune. (From the eponymous series _Dune_ by Frank Herbert.)

**The Gate: Chapter Three**

"…you're telling us we're not in a sandstorm; we're inside some sort of interdimensional door."

Neji nodded. That was the basics of it.

Ebisu pressed on, waving his hands for emphasis. "We're inside…a door. A door that is disguised as a natural phenomenon that acts unnaturally, and happens to lead to the furthest corners of the universe."

Neji nodded again.

Ebisu shrugged and gave a long-suffering sigh. "Can't say it's the weirdest thing that's ever happened to me."

The other jounin-sensei ruefully nodded. Neji had expected this. As a rule, there was always something stranger that had already happened. Thanks to the existence of Gai-sensei, there were no exceptions to this rule.

None.

"I've been able to determine what's on the other side," Neji remarked, pulling the other jounin out of their thoughts. "It's another desert. It appears to be similar to Wind Country."

Genma shifted the senbon from the right side of his mouth to the left with an aggravated flick of his tongue. "You don't think it's Wind Country." It wasn't a question.

"No."

There was silence for a moment.

Ebisu pressed his glasses up his nose and frowned. "So, our options are to stay here and hope that we magically reappear in Wind Country, or to attempt to use this 'gate' to magically find our way to Wind Country."

Neji nodded. He was beginning to like Ebisu; the man conveniently stated the obvious to make himself appear observant.

Genma sighed and cocked his head. "When do we leave?

"I'll be leading a small group through as soon as they can assemble. Genma, Mozuku, bring your teams. Everyone else, stay behind and keep watch. If things are…bad…on the other side, we'll come back."

Ebisu coughed nervously into his hand. "How do you know you'll be able to return?"

Neji smirked at the man. "I'll just follow the sound of Konohamaru whining."

The group gave a nervous chuckle at the poor humor. If only they knew he wasn't really joking.

"Genma, Mozuku, you have fifteen minutes. The rest of you…dismissed."

-/-/=\-\-

Mozuku readjusted his glasses for the sixth time, disguising the motion by scratching the hair over his ear. "What are we waiting for?"

Neji briefly considered answering with the small catalogue of nervous ticks the man had shown in the past ten minutes, but decided against it. "Something important. It won't be much longer." Mozuku reluctantly returned to silence. Neji took the time remaining to study the genin.

Kaoru and Michi, the two token kunoichi, stood slightly aloof from the members of their team, huddled in conversation. From the motion of their lips, Neji caught the words "hair," "water," "skin," and "look horrible." Well, there was always the off chance they would grow up. Supposedly Sakura had, though Neji saw few of the earmarks of maturity in her. Strength yes, wisdom…maybe.

The two boys of Genma's team were idly playing Janken. Taro had won fourteen – now fifteen – of their twenty-two games. Overconfidence was beginning to show, and Taro began each new game with a grin and a mocking shake of his shoulder-length brown hair. Takeo looked like the next game would end up in him throwing rock, right into Taro's face.

Iwao and Hideo of Mozuku's team were unsubtly attempting to eavesdrop on the girls' conversation. From the looks on their faces it had something to do with the (mistaken) belief that it was about them.

Now should be about the time, he decided.

"Konohamaru!" Neji barked. "Report!"

Konohamaru tossed the sand-patterned blanket off of himself and stood, thirty yards to the group's left. He was pouting, and Neji arched a single eyebrow and waited for a response.

The boy giggled nervously and scratched at the back of his head. "I was just, um…practicing my stealth skills?"

Neji didn't even bother calling the boy on the blatant lie; he just beckoned imperiously, the corners of his lips twisted down in a frown.

Konohamaru swallowed nervously before reluctantly jogging up the sand dune. Neji's disinterested, slightly irritated looking gaze didn't waver during the approach, and the genin stopped a respectful distance away.

"Respectful" was one of the many polite adjectives he had never attributed to Konohamaru.

Neji crooked a finger and narrowed his eyes. Konohamaru took a few nervous steps, and once he was in reach, Neji grabbed him by the shoulder. Ignoring the boy's surprise, he leaned in and whispered, "Stay here. You are the anchor for this expedition, and I need you here. Or we won't be coming back."

Then he shoved the startled genin away and turned back to the eight shinobi he'd tasked with following him into the sandstorm-gate. "We're going now."

"That doesn't make sense!" Konohamaru yelled.

Neji didn't look back, but answered anyway. "Have some faith in me."

Before Konohamaru could respond, Neji beckoned his expedition to follow. He wanted to take a deep breath to steel himself for the journey, but they needed a show of confidence. So with five casual steps, he walked into the storm.

-/-/=\-\-

If he ever did this again, he would have to make sure that everyone waited a decent amount of time before stepping into the storm. Watching five people collapse on top of each other had been a much needed moment of levity, but watching them yell at each other afterwards hadn't been.

They weren't really angry at each other, just…unsettled. Even in the darkness of night, it was easy to see why.

Iwao scratched his chin thoughtfully and stared up at the sky. "I _wonder_ what it is about this place that doesn't feel like Wind Country?"

His teammate Hideo was quick to respond, "I dunno. Looks the same…sand, stars, moons…"

"Yeah, Wind Country always was famous for having two moons," Iwao shot back.

"That's enough," Neji interrupted. "You're right; this obviously isn't Wind Country." He hadn't thought it was; the sand grain hadn't felt welcomed or familiar. But…there was one thing it had recognized.

So he continued, "That doesn't mean this mission is a total waste."

Iwao frowned. "Why not? There's no water here."

Neji's estimation of the troublemaker rose slightly. He was concerned for their supplies. Good. A quick glance to Mozuku and Genma revealed that neither was overly concerned about the stellar shift. They weren't in the best of moods either – Genma's teeth were grinding audibly against the senbon – but they would follow him.

"There was a covert, secondary objective to this trip that I did not inform you of."

Genma scowled. "What would that be?" The tone of his voice reflected betrayal; did he really think Neji was using them for his own purposes?

Assuaging that doubt would be Neji's highest priority. "I think this is where Naruto ended up. I detected his chakra when I first scouted this place." He paused for a moment, letting that sink in. "I would have said that this wasn't home, but I scouted during daylight and didn't see the moons."

'Scouting' was such a more reassuring word than 'observing from the perspective of a grain of sand.' Neji knew that the others wouldn't believe him if he told them what he'd done. Not yet.

The day when they accepted him as…changed…by the day of the storm would come. It would have to; Neji could slowly feel the change building. It was subtle, but every day he felt as if his perception had grown. As if one day he'd be able to study the desert instead of the grains, and it wouldn't matter. He would know both.

Genma nodded appreciatively. "I'd about given up on him…should know by now that that's a losing bet," he chuckled. "So where's the runt?"

Neji turned and pointed at a long stretch of rocky ground. "That way." He quickly activated his Byakugan and strode off in the direction he'd indicated, leaving no room for argument. The jounin knew better than to disagree in public and the genin were too busy watching their footing in the soft light of the moons.

-/-/=\-\-

He knew what they would find long before they reached the scene of the battle, but didn't warn the rest of the group. It would be a good learning exercise for the genin.

Torn scraps of orange and black cloth were pinned to the ground with an assortment of what appeared to be broken crossbow bolts. A few splotches of blood still glimmered with faded traces of chakra, while others had none.

For Neji, the job was easy enough. Naruto had encountered a large group of people, possibly bandits, but with limited ninja training. A quick estimate of the decay rate of chakra in inert blood put the fight at a little over a day ago. Based on the relative amounts of chakra filled blood to chakra-empty blood, Naruto had won. From there, all Neji had to explain was why there were no bodies.

Knowing and knowing of Naruto, he'd have to guess that the blond had somehow managed to convince himself and the bandits that the fight had been a misunderstanding. By now they were probably eating together, with Naruto laughing and offending his new acquaintances with his lack of table etiquette.

Knowing that there was no rush to locate Naruto, Neji turned to the genin. "Who wants to guess what happened here?" he asked, tone making it clear that the genin had better 'want to guess.' He'd accept basic evaluation; it would be difficult for them to find subtle clues in the dark without a doujutsu.

Kaoru raised her hand.

Neji sighed. Sometimes treating every student at the Ninja Academy like they were civilians had its drawbacks. "This isn't the Academy. Speak up if you have an idea."

"A fight!" she exclaimed.

Neji resisted the urge to hang his head in exasperation. "…yes, there was a fight here. Can anyone guess what _happened_ in that fight?"

"Well I think – " Takeo began.

Taro announced, "It's obvious that – " at the same time.

The two turned to glare at each other, convinced that they had started first. Kaoru smirked triumphantly. Raising hands was childish and apparently necessary. Neji refused to admit this. Proper ninja should be able to observe their fellows and use subtle queues to arrange a speaking order.

Genma grunted, and instantly had their attention. "One at a time. Taro first."

Neji almost envied the easy command Genma had over his team, but envy was pointless. It was Genma's job to be a leader that his team liked and trusted. It was Neji's job to be a leader that they followed – reluctantly, eagerly, joyfully, miserably – it just mattered that they followed. He decided the way the mission was done, and though he would have to work with these people again, it wouldn't be on a constant basis.

A little voice inside him whispered that love was better than fear, but Neji ignored it.

Taro looked down his nose at Takeo in a superior fashion. "Well, I was going to say that it's obvious that Naruto fought a large group of people here. There's a lot of arrows and a few scraps of torn cloth that look like that orange outfit he was wearing, but not much blood. I think he won."

"I think you're stupid!" Takeo blurted.

Taro snorted in amusement. "Oh really? What do _you_ think happened, idiot?"

Takeo frowned and shrugged. "I dunno. But I do know that you can't be right, 'cuz if Naruto'd won then there'd be bodies or something. Bits of equipment he used on the ground. All that's left is the broken bolts; anything that was salvageable was carried off. So the people he fought have to still be alive. And with this much blood…"

"Not everyone has to scrounge every last little thing they need. Stuff could have blown away in the desert."

Takeo's hands balled into fists and he took a step towards his teammate. Genma snapped out an arm lightning-fast and grabbed Takeo by the back of his collar. Takeo didn't look at his sensei, but bit the inside of his cheek and relaxed his fists.

"Not here," Genma muttered. Raising his voice so Taro could hear him clearly, Genma announced, "But when we get back you two can spar, and if one if you should _break the other's jaw,_ I won't say a thing this time."

Takeo flexed his jaw nervously. Neji nodded approvingly at the byplay – Taro was an ass, but Takeo could kick his ass. A good balance.

"I think Naruto lost," Michi announced. The rest of the group had been distracted by the near-fight between Taro and Takeo, and whirled on her in surprise. She swallowed nervously at the sudden attention. "Um…the heads of the bolts are poisoned. Soporific."

Mozuku frowned. "How do you know what it does? You don't really know anything about poisons…"

Michi blushed and pointed at Kaoru, who was snoring contentedly near one of the bolts.

"Well, that explains that," Iwao commented. Hideo nodded.

Neji frowned to himself. How had he not noticed the poison? Had he been careless? Or was there something different about this world's poisons? He needed to know more…

But right now, he didn't have time. "Genma, carry Kaoru. Everyone, pick up the pace."

The group set out at doublestep, using chakra to enhance their legs. It was a horribly inefficient pace for the desert; the environment sapped energy and encouraged slow movement.

Neji was somewhat proud that nobody complained about the pace. They'd all have plenty of time for slow movement when they'd found Naruto, alive.

-/-/=\-\-

The trail of the group Naruto had fought with was spotty and disappeared at times. Eventually Neji completely ran out of footsteps and overturned stones to follow, and after a moment's search for more, he abandoned traditional tracking methods.

Using his Byakugan, he strained his vision for miles, trying to see any trace of the missing 'genin.'

Nothing.

He gave the expanse of rock one more sweep of chakra-enhanced vision, and despaired. He couldn't see anything. No trace of – there! There was a path worn by long generations of hands and feet climbing up the same rock face. The end of the path was beyond the range of his vision, but now he knew where to go.

With a bound, he resumed pursuit. The rest of the group fell in behind him, struggling slightly to keep the pace.

By the time they'd reached the base of the climbing path, Neji could see the edges of a cave system. There were several human-shaped bodies there, but nothing he could see clearly.

It took the group almost ten minutes to reach the base of the cliff-path that Neji had seen. He called a halt, letting the genin catch their breath.

After a minute, he began telling them what he had seen. "This cliff-path is man-made from extended use. A few hundred yards from the top is a cave entrance…and inside that cave, we'll find Naruto and whoever he fought."

Genma eyed the cliff wall warily. "No traps on the wall?"

"None."

Genma nodded. "I say we rush it. Most chakra users don't use crossbows; the bolts are too slow. Running up the wall should take them by surprise."

Neji glanced at their group. The genin were tired, but the jounin were fresh. On the other hand, they were reasonably sure that their enemy was capable of taking down at least one jounin-level opponent…

In the perfect peripheral vision of his Byakugan, he saw a human-shaped chakra system approaching the cliff edge. A quick hand gesture silenced the group, and two more warned them of the approaching threat. Definitely a chakra user.

Mozuku slowly went through the hand signs of a concealing genjutsu; the words of the signs were spoken under his breath but sounded all too loud.

There was a shuffling sound from the top of the cliff, and the Konoha nin tensed. They couldn't be seen, they knew, but that still wouldn't protect them from blind fire.

When the figure leaned over the cliff edge, they realized that all their preparations were for naught.

"I know you're down there!" Naruto yelled. "What the hell took you so long? The food here sucks!"

Neji frowned to himself. There was something different about Naruto…he should have been able to recognize him just by his chakra system alone; he'd spent enough time trying to destroy it during the Chuunin Exam. Perhaps something had changed over Naruto's training trip with Jiraiya.

For the moment, he abandoned the small mystery and let his team bask in the confidence of easy success. They hadn't had to do any fighting, just basic tracking. And Neji had obviously been right with his first guess about Naruto's fight; the idiot was still alive after all.

Naruto waved his arms up and down like a windmill. "Are you coming? Whoa-" the waving of his arms upset his balance, and for a moment Naruto teetered precariously at the edge of the cliff before catching his balance.

"I meant to do that!"

Neji groaned and covered his face with his hand to hide his smile. Rescuing people like Naruto was punishment duty. There was no other way to describe it – constant whining, sand everywhere, and almost no water.

Of course, he still wouldn't give it up for anything.

-/-/=\-\-

In the end, Naruto talked the group into coming up the cliff to "meet the locals." This proved to be rather difficult due to the taciturn nature of the locals and the fact that they spoke an entirely different language. The Konoha nin were also reluctant to enter the cave system, and the locals were reluctant to leave it. Neji doubted that they would have been allowed inside in any event; Naruto's presence seemed to be all that was keeping the locals from attacking.

Looking around at the few people who'd clustered around the foreigners, Neji slowly shook his head in amazement. Did they have completely blue eyes? How did that happen? It looked vaguely like an inactive Byakugan eye.

Their cooking, however, resembled nothing Neji had ever seen before. In the interests of not appearing disdainful, he subtly managed to appear as if he was always _just about_ to take a bite. He couldn't quite bring himself to eat it, though the cinnamon scent reminded him of how long it had been since he'd eaten.

Still, these people couldn't have much to spare, given the sparse nature of their homeland. They shouldn't have to provide for an expeditionary force of shinobi as well.

_It would be a gesture of respect._ Neji slightly narrowed his eyes at the thought. He'd never expected or demanded respect from foreigners.

Naruto interrupted his thoughts. "So, did you find that battlefield?

Neji nodded. "I'm still unclear on how you managed to be attacked by alien bandits, win, and then make friends without speaking a single word of their language."

Naruto grinned sheepishly. "Actually…I kinda lost that fight."

"How?" asked a surprised Neji. So he'd been wrong after all.

"It went like this…"

-/-/=\-\-

"Several dozen of you…one of me. Hardly fair."

The crossbows didn't waver.

"Maybe I should tie one hand behind my back?"

They couldn't understand him, but the mocking tone of voice got the message across just fine. There was a unanimous click-fwoosh noise of crossbow bolts being fired, and Naruto stopped holding back. They'd started it, after all.

He rolled forwards and jumped to the left, spinning in midair. One bolt nicked him slightly, but was deflected by the spin. The rest missed completely.

Problem with crossbows: they take awhile to reload. Nice thing about ninja: they're faster than crossbows.

Naruto hit the ground running. Everything seemed like it was moving in slow motion compared to him; non-ninja were so _slow_. The first group he ran into went down before they'd even managed to draw their knives. Naruto wondered how many he could knock out before the dropped crossbows hit the ground.

Three, as it turned out.

Thirty-eight more to go. It couldn't take very long. Actually, maybe it could wait a bit. He was kind of tired; the bandits seemed like nice people. They'd probably let him have his nap before finishing their fight.

Naruto hit the ground snoring, two rips in his outfit bleeding from narrow, thin gashes.

-/-/=\-\-

"So Michi was right…those bolts were poisoned," Neji mused aloud. In the moment of thought his concentration towards the food lapsed, and he took a bite. The cinnamon flavor burst onto his tongue, and he felt a violet light erupt in a starburst behind his eyes.

Neji inhaled deeply through his nose, trying to clear his head.

Naruto, oblivious, nodded. "Musta been something pretty strong too. Normally stuff like that barely slows me down."

That managed to kick Neji's thoughts back on track, if briefly. Naruto had some sort of natural resistance to poison? Neji could understand the pain threshold; being on a team with Sakura would immunize one to that sort of thing, but how did poison factor into that? Like so much else, it would have to wait.

Right now, he needed to know the rest of that story. His mind spun out of focus again, and his will morphed into action and he reached out with mental fingers and brushed against Naruto's surface thoughts.

-/-/=\-\-

Naruto woke slowly. When he first opened his eyes, his vision was blurry, and his entire body ached like he'd spent hours tied to a pole while sitting on a stone floor. He yawned, and reflexively tried to cover his mouth.

His hand was yanked to immobility by the rope that tied it behind the pole behind him.

Well that explained the soreness.

"Where the hell am I?"

Sadly, nobody answered. Still, the echoes on the cave walls sounded funny.

"Hellooooo" he called again, varying the pitch of his voice for every second that he held the "o." Naruto couldn't hold it for more than ten seconds before he burst out laughing.

When the amused tears had faded, Naruto was greeted with the sight of a man in simple yet elegant pair of dark blue pants and matching shirt. The man also wore a pair of fingerless gloves with a dagger-like emblem on the back.

The man himself wasn't anything special. He was maybe two inches taller than Naruto, though it looked like he weighed a good thirty pounds more. He had sandy-blond hair that came down to his shoulders, and a simplistic-looking headband kept it out of his eyes.

"How do you move so quickly?" the man asked.

Naruto grimaced in confusion. "Don't understand ya."

For a moment the scene wavered, Neji not understanding why he understood the Fremen's language - the man was a Fremen? What did that mean? The answer was instantly supplied out of knowledge that was not his own – [Free man]. Confusion was overridden by the Fremen's next words.

"My name is Otheym. I am the naib-[leader] of this sietch-[settlement]. You beat much water from my men. You moved…impossibly. I saw with my own eyes." He gestured towards his blue-in-blue eyes.

Naruto shook his head. "I have no idea what you're saying. Maybe…" he trailed off. This wasn't going anywhere.

"Mahdi?" Otheym repeated, horribly mangling "maybe." "You are not the Mahdi-[messiah]."

"Look, I'm sure you're having fun here, but I have to go," Naruto answered. "So cut the ropes and we'll go our separate ways.

Otheym sighed. "You are useless to the Fremen." Turning, he yelled, "Take this one to the deathstill!"

Naruto frowned. "That didn't sound nice."

"The water of your body will go towards the supply to change this desert world into a paradise. Be honored, outsider."

"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Neji was completely thrown out of Naruto's perspective. The dozens of shadow clones, all with immediately different perspectives – he couldn't follow the memories of the real one, because they were all real; one just happened to be the original.

There were fragments of memory after the technique –

…parried the knife with a kunai and kicked it out of Otheym's hand, shattering the blade of the crysknife…

…led the clone charge through the settlement, winning by virtue of every opponent dropping their weapon in shock and awe…

…Otheym spitting at his feet…a gesture of giving water, of deep respect, though he didn't know it…

…shifting from combat to confusion, Naruto tried to keep the woman from bowing to him…

…requested that he be tested to confirm his divinity. Naruto simply smiled and backed away, still not understanding a word the Fremen said…

-/-/=\-\-

Neji gasped, trying to clear his head of the lingering images with the inrush of air. It took him a moment to satisfy himself that he was back in his own body.

"Are you alright?" Naruto asked. "You kinda zoned out for a bit there."

He shook his head and pinched the bridge of his nose. Had he really just…?

"Naruto, do they think you're a god or something?"

Naruto's jaw dropped. "How do you know that? I didn't say anything about the bowing or the…respect…" he whispered that last word covetously. Swallowing nervously, he pressed on, "I mean, they're way wrong; I'd make a crappy God, but how do you know that?"

Neji's eyes dropped to the bowl he'd spooned a bite of Fremen food from. The cinnamon scent rose again, this time tickling a now-familiar part of his expanded consciousness.

"I think there's something in the food," he answered slowly. "Have you been hallucinating? Weird dreams? Anything?"

Naruto shook his head. "The only weird dream I've had was before I ate any of this stuff. My first night here I had this weird dream I'd been standing in a ruin of some freaky, high-tech city and there were a few survivors scrambling around. Then a bunch of light balls fell from the sky and killed everyone, including me. Then I woke up."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah," Naruto answered, then shrugged his shoulders. "I mean, I only had like half a bite before I gave it to this starved-looking kid. They put way too much of whatever that spice is in it."

Maybe it was something about the air? Or maybe he was just more susceptible? Well, there was a simple way to check. All he had to do was tell everyone to stick to their travel rations for the night and see if anyone started having visions anyway.

"What does bad food have to do with anything?" Naruto asked.

"It's not bad food," Neji answered slowly. "I…read your mind after I ate a bit. It's probably not related, but it would have been a nice coincidence."

"You read my mind!?"

"Yes, you can put your doubts to rest. You do indeed have a mind."

Naruto scowled, but there was no venom in his voice. "That's not what I meant."

Neji sighed and turned to look at the Konoha nin. Kaoru was still out cold, but the other genin had slowly begun to edge towards the Fremen children, who had done the same. Adults on both sides kept a wary eye, though the Fremen were watching the jounin, not their children. Fremen children were capable warriors who lacked only the muscle mass and height to equal their elders.

"Things have…changed, while you were gone," Neji began slowly. "That sandstorm that sent you here…nearly killed me. But when I woke up, my Byakugan had seemingly endless perception. I could see everything, down to the tiniest particle in a grain of sand…"

"Well obviously you couldn't see everything, or you'd have seen me and gotten here faster," Naruto griped.

The comment sent the honed machine of Neji's mind into overdrive. If he could look endlessly closer at an object…could he look endlessly away? To the bounds of the world and beyond?

He resisted the urge…for the moment.

"We can deal with this once we're back on _our_ world," Neji said, emphasizing 'our' to evoke a subconscious bit of nationalism from Naruto. "For now…well, it looks like it's well past midnight. You should get some sleep."

For a second, Neji thought Naruto would argue. Then, Naruto nodded and grinned a fox-ish grin that managed to look completely sincere while still reminding Neji that the 'genin' before him had been pranking elite shinobi for almost a decade.

It was not a comforting grin.

"'kay," Naruto said. "See you later."

Unexpectedly, Naruto headed for the Fremen cave system. It made sense – he didn't have a sleeping kit – but Neji had still thought that Naruto would spend the night catching up on everything he'd missed. Hopefully Naruto wouldn't get too attached to the Fremen; Neji planned to evacuate long before they discovered that Naruto was not, in fact, their Mahdi, their messiah.

In the meantime, he'd have to hope that the objects the genin and Fremen children were swapping weren't too valuable. The last thing he needed was five kids with no water and shiny trinkets as replacements.

-/-/=\-\-

Neji lay next to the edge of the cliff as he looked up at the foreign stars, stray strands of his long hair dangling over the precipice. He still didn't feel tired, even though he'd been awake for more than two days.

It wasn't like his thoughts were racing, filled with nervous energy. It was more like…serenity.

It was really somewhat ironic. For most of his life, he'd felt a sense of turmoil and quiet rage at fate. But now that he'd lost faith in fate, that the future was not written by some unknown higher power…he was at peace.

_Maybe it's because you_ are _the higher power._

Neji snorted in amusement at the idea. Neji, the God. That'd be the day.

Speaking of "gods," what was Naruto up to?

The veins surrounding his eyes bulged, and Neji's vision expanded. A brief glance through the cave system showed Fremen warily positioned in dark alcoves in the main entrance, but where was Naruto?

A more intensive, room by room scan of the caves revealed nothing.

Neji shifted his focus to the small encampment of Konoha nin, who had ignored the subtle attempts of their sensei to create segregated sleeping places in favor of a clustered pile of blankets and sleeping bags. Still no Naruto.

In desperation, Neji sent his vision into the sky and looked down at the dark, dead silence of the desert. The ground was universally sandy away from the rocky outgrowth of the cave system.

No Naruto. No tracks in the sand.

Neji scrunched his eyes shut and groaned. He should really be expecting shit like this by now.

-/-/=\-\-

Naruto hadn't quite known what to expect when one of the (what had Neji called them? Furmen?) woke him up. His internal clock said it couldn't have been more than an hour, and the long, smelly yawn he directed towards his human alarm clock said that the Furman had better have a good reason.

The Furman, who had the same weird blue eyes as everyone else, beckoned Naruto to follow. Naruto considered rolling over and going back to sleep, but these people didn't seem to have much in the way of a sense of humor.

"'m getting up already," he mumbled. "What does Neji want? Gah…of course, you might as well be mute, eh?" Naruto gave a wry grin. In response, a long metal rod with a hooked end, easily as tall as Naruto, was held out to him. Naruto picked it up, surprised at how light it was.

Then the Furman resumed beckoning, and pointed towards the main tunnel passage to the surface. Naruto yawned again and scratched his ass before waving a hand towards the Furman. The Furman apparently got the message and slowly walked on, peering over his shoulder every few steps to make sure that Naruto was following.

As they exited the cave, Naruto idly wondered at the strange get-up these Furmen wore. He could kind of understand the coloring; it made for great camouflage. But the nose plugs and all the dials and straps? And why did he have another giant hook in his hand, and what was that metal stake-thing hooked onto his belt?

Maybe they were just weird. They were aliens, after all.

When they took a path that led in the exact opposite direction as Neji and the rest of the ninja, Naruto's attention perked up. The fact that most of the Furmen they'd passed had carefully avoided looking in their direction hadn't gone unnoticed.

"So…secret mission?" he asked.

The Furman whirled, narrowly avoiding smacking Naruto with the metal hook-pole, and reached out to place a hand over Naruto's mouth. Naruto grabbed the offending hand before it had come within a foot of his face and twisted, forcing the man to pivot back away. Naruto let the arm go once the man's back was to him again. The original hostilities may have been over, but Naruto still didn't trust the man enough to drop his guard completely. Hell, he should have told Neji what was up, but doing it without telling Neji would irritate the Hyuuga to no end.

The desire to irritate a commanding officer had always been greater than any instinct for self preservation.

Apparently it was a secret mission, and noise was bad. Naruto could deal with that, if only because he knew it would piss of Neji. Hopefully it wasn't about the Furmen's messiah crap, but he knew it probably was. Wasn't there something about being tested in the desert in most religions?

For a moment, neither moved. Naruto was simply waiting for his guide to continue, while the Fremen was waiting for the figurative hammer to fall.

When it didn't, he continued onwards, acting as if Naruto hadn't said anything. Bastards were almost as stoic as _the_ bastard. Sasuke tended to make better sniping comments, though Naruto was sure that if he could speak the same language as these Furmen he'd be buried in sarcasm.

Naruto gritted his teeth at thoughts of the Uchiha. He _really_ didn't have time for this. The three years were almost up; Orochimaru would be able to steal Sasuke's body soon.

He took a deep breath to calm himself. Just because he hadn't had any flashes of Kyuubi rage didn't mean they wouldn't come if he didn't control himself. Naruto's right hand unconsciously drifted towards his stomach and tightened on his black undershirt.

Damn Jiraiya and his meddling. Two years of training gone to shit because the perv got curious about the seal. At least if Naruto ever _did_ manage to gain control again, he'd theoretically be "a force to be reckoned with." Tch. He could have been that without the fox, and he wouldn't be living in constant vigilance of Kyuubi chakra.

Still, shit happens, and Naruto had been the one who agreed to Jiraiya's idea. Sorrow and moping wouldn't get him anywhere.

He hadn't bothered to bring his new orange jacket with the black sleeves, but in the cold desert night he regretted leaving it back in the cave. He tucked his hands beneath his armpits and bit his cheek to keep his teeth from chattering.

The Furman turned and held up a hand. Naruto stopped.

What followed was the most bizarre pantomime Naruto had ever seen. The Furman held out one left hand with two fingers extended downward in an upside-down V, and then began to make a walking motion. Suddenly he brought his right hand up from beneath the "walking" hand, and grabbed it violently, then pulled it down. Then he made an 'X' motion with his arms.

Naruto blinked in confusion. The hell was that supposed to mean?

The Furman wasn't done. He began 'walking' his left hand again, but this time the 'leg' movements were jerky and arrhythmic, like Jiraiya dancing. Then the Furman fisted his right hand…and kept it motionless. There was no violent grabbing of the other hand.

The Furman nodded to Naruto before turning and stepping off of the last vestige of rock, his foot sinking about an inch into the sand. Naruto groaned; open toed ninja sandals were going to _suck._

Naruto watched in confusion as the Furman proceeded to stumble across the sand. It looked like he was having a seizure, and Naruto took three steps out onto the sand to see if he was alright.

Before he could take a fourth, the Furman whirled and hissed in anger, pointing at Naruto's feet, then his own. Then the Furman turned back around and resumed his odd gait.

Now, he wasn't Shikamaru, but Naruto wasn't stupid either. For whatever reason, he was supposed to walk…without rhythm. Or the sand monsters would eat him, or something.

Naruto grinned wolfishly. Pointless insanity was his stock in trade. Somewhat amused by the entire affair, he started his dance with the sand.

It was a surprisingly absorbing task, walking without rhythm. Ninja 'grace' was really just hours and hours of practice at refining normal movement, and the basics were always set to a quiet, smooth bit of classical music.

Naruto hadn't liked the music, but he'd showed up to class for every one of those lessons. He had _definitely_ liked what walking to the music did to Sakura's posture – lip bit in concentration, eyes narrowed, "leg" muscles tightened nervously…and the girls always went first.

Absorbed as he was with the memory, he almost collided with his guide.

"Yo, why'd we stop?" Naruto asked. The words were pointless, but the tone might get his message across.

The Furman unhooked the clasps keeping the metal stake-thing from his belt, and for the first time Naruto got a good look at it. It had a long, central cylinder and two smaller cylinders on either side.

The Furman carefully set it on the ground and twisted the main, central cylinder. The cylinder slowly raised into the air before crashing down into the sand.

For such a tiny device, the _boom_ noise echoed loudly throughout the empty sea of sand dunes. The central cylinder quickly rose up again before crashing down. It did so again with a steady rhythm; one thump every three seconds or so.

Naruto leaned in, trying to see if there was something more complicated about the mechanism that give it such disproportionate loudness.

In the two seconds that his attention was fully on the strange, thumping device, he lost track of the Furman.

He only realized it when something cracked against the back of his skull and a blinding light exploded behind his eyes, right before he slipped into unconsciousness.

-/-/=\-\-

The ground shook beneath Naruto's limp form. The sand began to heave, topmost grains jumping as much as six inches into the air. The shifting terrain rolled Naruto over, sending a lance of pain into the bloody bump on the back of his head.

"The fuck hit me," he grumbled groggily.

His eyes latched onto the still-thumping stake device. Right. The Furman brought him out here, and the thing that hit him the head was probably one of those metal hook poles. He could see them both lying on the ground; one had blood on it.

Naruto groaned. If he'd wanted to duel, they could have done that back at the cave. And, seriously, what the hell was with the stake thing? Maybe it was part of the ritual announcement of _asshatted, underhanded duels_ that was unique to this particular culture of freaks.

He gritted his teeth and let out his breath in a hiss. The ground continued to shake, and even through his building rage, Naruto could tell that it was getting worse. He looked around, confused as to which way he'd come.

Climbing a distant sand dune, he could see the lone Furman.

Son of a bitch.

Ninja are fast, and if that jerk thought he could knock Naruto out and just walk away, Naruto picked up the metal poles, fully intent on shoving them up that guy's _ass._ Narrowing his eyes, Naruto forced chakra into his legs for the near-instantaneous speed of Shunshin.

Just as the world became a speed-blur, the ground behind him exploded upward.

Naruto was caught in the fringe of the sudden blast, and went flying an additional hundred yards. He landed lightly, cushioned by sand and near-instinctual chakra usage. He turned around to look back, wondering if that stake thing had been a bomb.

His jaw dropped, and his left eye began to twitch.

Nope. Not a bomb.

It was a **_giant fucking worm._** The thing must have been sixty yards high, and he could see the ringed segments stretch on seemingly endlessly, until they ended over half a mile away.

He took a few steps backward, mind numb. This was ridiculous.

The worm turned in his direction, and exploded into motion. The massive ring segments contracted and expanded, moving it towards him at an impossible speed. There was no way he could outrun it, and the mind-boggling bulk of it made dodging ludicrous. There was only one thing to do.

He leaped into the air, screaming, "Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"

Two dozen clones surrounded him, and two threw him further up. He landed on another, jumped, summoned more clones, and repeated. When he was two hundred feet in the air, right at the apex of his final jump, he angled himself for the fall.

In the second it had taken him to pull the technique off, the worm had covered the distance between them. It crashed through the clones like they hadn't even been there.

Naruto landed on its back with a thud. His feet slipped a bit, and he fell on his butt. He hastily shoved chakra into everything touching the worm. Falling would be bad.

After making sure he had his balance, Naruto breathed a sigh of relief, then looked down at his hands. In the chaos of it all, he'd never dropped the metal poles. His gaze drifted to the segments of the worm.

Huh. Those poles were just about right for…

Naruto stretched out with one of the poles and jammed the hook segment down into the crack between the massive segments of the ring. The worm began to turn, and the sudden jerk from the worm caused him to reflexively pull his arm back, trying to maintain his balance as he quickly found himself at right-angles to the ground.

The segment pulled back, revealing a fleshier, less armored looking bit of the worm. The worm turned back so that the exposed segment was on top.

Gears in Naruto's head began to spin.

"You have got to be kidding me," he muttered to himself. "These people are completely insane."

Still. One way to test his little guess. With a very quick hand gesture and a flare of chakra, a half dozen clones wielding the worm-hooks appeared. Three went down the right side of the worm, adhering to the surface with chakra, and the other three went down the left. After a moment, they all yelled that they were in position.

"Middle left, pull!"

The clone on the middle left of the worm pulled back on the segment, and the worm began to slowly roll to the right, it's great bulk leaving massive tracks in the sand.

"Middle left, release!"

The worm stopped turning, resuming its straight path, only at a slight angle to the original course.

Naruto's grin would have struck fear into fear itself. He was on top of a monstrous worm, almost a mile long, and taller than Gamabunta. The only thing separating him from a messy, squishy death was two metal hooks and some intuition. He had no idea how he was going to get down.

But right now, he could see that Furman ass off to distant left. There was another large group of people approaching the Furman at an angle, but they were even further off. Probably Neji, or maybe reinforcements for the Furman.

"Left side up! Right side, pull!"

The clones on the left ran up the worm, and the ones on the right pulled back, forcing the worm to turn abruptly. Had the clones on the left stayed behind, they would have been crushed.

"At ease!" Naruto yelled.

The clones resumed original positions, and the worm leveled off, heading directly for the Furman. Naruto wondered if this was what cavalry felt like, charging down the enemy infantry. Nah…it was more like being captain of a boat.

A worm-boat that went over sand instead of water.

An _awesome_ boat.

The worm moved at an incredible speed, and in moments he was close enough to make out the individual features of his erstwhile murderer.

For the second time that day, Naruto's face twisted in shock. The approaching group had crested a sand dune and could clearly see him now, but he was focused on the man who had taken him out into the desert to die.

The man was…grinning? And jumping up and down, cheering?

Naruto shook his head in disbelief. There had to be something in the water around here. These people were loons.

Still, he didn't want to squish the man in cold blood. And he might miss and crush all the people who appeared to be angry at the man who'd brought him into the desert.

Another quick use of Kage Bunshin put another clone on the worm, who shrugged and took his place at the lead position. "Middle right, pull!"

The worm turned to the left again, veering away from the people on the far-away ground and out into the open desert.

For a brief instant, Naruto considered running down the half-mile of worm and leaping dramatically off of the tail, instead of making more clones and jumping safely to the edge of the sand dune.

Why would he need to think about it for more than a brief instant? It was a great idea.

He sprinted along the worm's back, easily matching its speed so that he appeared motionless relative to the ground. The Konoha nin and a large group of Furmen slowly drifted into a group behind the Furman who'd brought him out here. A few minutes later, he'd reached the tail. With a kick-step and a chakra enhanced leap, he soared into the air.

He did two forward flips as he rose, and for variety did a backwards flip as he sailed forwards, landing directly before his guide in a combat pose, the metal worm hooks held like swords.

Every single local burst into a wild cacophony of cheers. Naruto's grin had never faded.

God damn these people were crazy, but at least they were sane enough to recognize how awesome he was.

-/-/=\-\-

The moment Naruto had landed, the giant Maker-[sandworm] barreling off into the distance, he'd been swarmed by Fremen. Neji remained at the fringes of the crowd, not even bothering to try and get to Naruto. Genma and his team were further back up the sand dune, looking on in bemusement.

Of the Konoha-nin, Neji was the only one who truly understood what had just happened.

Riding a sandworm was the Fremen coming-of-age trial. Normally one would prepare, listen to hints from older, wiser hands, and most importantly of all, one would have at least a dozen others to assist with steering the worm.

One did not wake up from unconsciousness and wing it by oneself.

_He will know your ways as if born to them…_

It was part of the Fremen "prophecy" regarding their savior. An outsider who would lead them to freedom and transform Arrakis into a paradise of flowing water and green plants.

Until now, there had been holdouts against Naruto. It was all too easy for Neji to see from Naruto's memories – and that was a strange thought in and of itself – that for every Fremen bowing to the Mahdi-[savior] there had been one who scowled.

Until now, Neji mused, the ululations of the crowd ringing in his ears.

Until now.


End file.
